For science, mummy speaks louder than words

Picture: JASON SOUTHEgyptologist Rosalie David is visiting Melbourne where she examined the mummified head of an eight-year-old Egyptian boy.

In a cardboard box on the third floor of a Carlton building is the mummified head of a boy, aged about eight.

Born in Egypt some 2000 years ago, his gold leaf-painted head - which belongs to the Australian Institute of Archaeology - was probably a tourist souvenir in the early 19th century, according to visiting mummy specialist Rosalie David.

"People used to bring back two favorite souvenirs from Egypt - a crocodile under one arm and a mummy under the other," she said. "They held social evenings with a party where they 'unrolled a mummy' as they called it. And all the information was just discarded, apart from one or two cases. It was a frivolous pursuit."

Professor David, who runs the mummy research project at Manchester University, in England, is one of the world's experts on Egyptian mummies.

She has come to Victoria for a two-week fellowship that includes a series of talks and public lectures organised by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. One key purpose of her visit is to share the scientific techniques used on ancient mummies - created by removing internal organs, filling the cavity with a natural salt and allowing the body to dry - with the forensic experts who examine the corpses of today.

Victoria's senior pathologist and the institute's acting director, David Ranson, said while mummification was rare, when someone died in a warm, dry environment, with good airflow and was left undisturbed for some time, the skin could dry out and mummification occur.

Cases he had investigated included a body in a mineshaft, a summertime suicide in a car in remote bushland, and an unwanted baby wrapped and hidden in a cupboard.

An example earlier this year was the discovery of a woman in her 70s in McKinnon who had been dead on her couch for about two years. "That person was significantly mummified," Associate Professor Ranson said.

Establishing how such people died presented problems, as in many cases the internal organs decomposed, while skin and remaining tissue dried out.

Which was exactly the problem in examining Egyptian mummies, Professor David said, from trying to extract DNA to examining tissue under the microscope. "Everything with mummies is more difficult because you have to get the tissue to the right state before you can apply the process. So, basically, if you can do it for mummies, it can be done for modern patients," she said.

"In Britain, the police developed a technique for fingerprinting mummies and they use that in their own work for desiccated bodies where you can't use the inkpad method."

Her work also involves tracking disease in ancient Egypt - a period up to 5000 years ago - using tissue samples taken from 1000 mummies from international museums.

Research has picked up parasitic infections and is looking for viral and bacterial DNA.